


Holding a Hurricane

by SunsetOfDoom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, This is pure fluff, pure self-indulgent fluff, the world needs more obimaul tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetOfDoom/pseuds/SunsetOfDoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long after Maul has defected from the Sith, he and Obi-wan share a moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding a Hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR THIS I WAS TIRED AND DRINKING A VODKA SMOOTHIE AND LAURA ENCOURAGED ME
> 
> I would delete this but the world needs more Obimaul so I'm leaving it. I promise I'll write something less self-indulgent, less ooc, and, inevitably, more painful, later.
> 
> I blame [Laura](littlebluecaboose.tumblr.com) for encouraging this and [Leon](darth-maul-official.tumblr.com) for making me ship it in the first place.

Sometimes Obi-wan’s heart ached so much he didn’t know what to do with himself. The pain of it seemed greater than he could hold, bigger than the whole of him. It wasn’t always unpleasant, the soft, empty ache of it expanding through his chest; it felt like he was trying, and failing, to fall in love with the entirety of the Universe in one go.

Or maybe just with one man.

A former Sith stood in the kitchen, bathed in gold sunset light, the royal hue of it hovering around his horns and blurring the lines between his markings.

Maul had insisted on cooking. He always insisted on cooking for him, mostly because Obi-wan subsisted entirely on defrosted foods, take-out, and whatever he made and burned. (And it was always burned, too. He was convinced he could burn cold cereal if he tried.) He danced in the thin space between the counter and the stove, rifling through cabinets and turning quickly to cut something and throw it in the soup-pot. He moved with a sort of unnatural grace, a constant awareness of where his body was, a total understanding of what he was capable of. They’d crossed blades before, and Obi-wan had always admired his fighting style, but until he’d left the Sith he’d not noticed the ease of Maul’s movements in everything he did. There was no music, but Obi-wan had no doubt that Maul could be an amazing dancer if it pleased him.

So he watched, arms crossed on the counter and his heart expanding with unbearable sweetness. He felt, oddly enough, completely safe. There was nothing on this planet- or almost any other, in fact- that would be able to harm him while Maul was his ally. Being so close to and so unafraid of a man of such leonine power and grace- it was heady.

Almost without warning, a spoon appeared in front of him. Maul’s golden eyes, a few feet ahead, widened a little; speaking in expression, as he usually did, this meant, _what are you waiting for_?

He tried the soup- stew? What was the difference exactly?- in front of him, a pleasantly strong flavor between the spices- which Obi-wan had picked out at the market- and the meat- from some local animal, which Maul had been quite proud of hunting himself. He blinked slowly; he’d done quite a bit of research at Maul’s native village, and a slow blink was a sign of respect and trust among Nightbrothers, not unlike cats.

Maul blinked back, smiling a little; the red rims were entirely gone from his eyes, the color of them less vivid now without the constant pain and torment that had kept him drowning in the Dark side. He gave Obi-wan a questioning look, his head tilted just exactly like a house-cat. (And the amount of times Obi-wan had tried to sneak cats into his rooms at the Temple was entirely excessive.)

“It’s quite good,” he murmured, careful of breaking the easy silence. Maul wrinkled his nose, and turned back, putting the lid on the pot and turning the heat off. He turned back, and they made eye contact again; it was strangely charged, not two tenuous allies sharing a friendly moment but- something else. Maul fidgeted with his fingertips worryingly, sliding them past his sharp teeth.

“Too quiet in here.” Maul remarked. He reached for his comm unit- normally on his wrist, it rested on a cabinet while he cooked. Pointing it at the sound system, it gave a click.

A slow, crooning love ballad came over the speakers with cinema-perfect timing.

Obi-wan listened for a moment, amusement mounting. After a few lines- yes, this was the song he was thinking of- he decided to play along. He leaned one elbow on the counter, resting his chin on his hand coquettishly. “Are you trying to seduce me?” 

His usually-perfect stone face cracked at Maul’s bewildered expression. A smile spread across his face.

“What?” Maul asked, looking very startled at Obi-wan’s posture. He couldn’t take it anymore; Obi-wan laid his head on the counter and laughed. 

“Do you-” he broke off, trying to still his laughter. “Do you know this song?” He asked. Maul shook his head.

“It’s a very famous love song, my dear.” He giggled a little, propping his head up on his hands. “I wouldn’t expect you to know it, given your upbringing, but-” He smiled. “It’s very popular. For couples, dining together.”

“Do you know it?” Maul was- quite close. Within touching distance, actually. Obi-wan felt his laughter dry up, the sweet, full warmth of earlier replaced with something like a rush of cool air, startling, new, a little nerve-wracking.

“I do,” he answered, “I’ve heard it a little too often.” Mostly in passing. It was simple, not quite to his taste, but he knew the words. And he knew that Maul had a fascination with music. He hummed a bar or two, unused to singing anywhere but the shower, but Maul ducked closer to hear him, easily within arm’s reach now. Obi-wan quashed the instinct to duck away- they weren’t enemies anymore. In fact...

He took Maul’s hand, slipping his pale fingers underneath Maul’s red-and-black palm, and lead him with great care to the sitting room.

Maul squawked a little, but went. “Keno- Obi-wan! I don’t know how-” He separated a little, but didn’t let go of Obi-wan’s hand. “I was never taught to dance.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’m a rubbish dancer, we’ll make a good pair.” Obi-wan lifted their joined hands over his head, spinning. He remembered- being on the other end of this, a hand in his and someone that he wanted rather desperately to impress; a minor festival on Mandalore and a teenaged Satine trying to coax him into a dance. The heartache was back, a little sharper than before, but the heavy gold light pouring in through the window softened the edges of it, turning old heartbreak into nostalgia.

Maul’s voice brought him back to the present; he’d heard the chorus a few times, enough to get the words, and was trying out an experimental harmony. The chords of it jangled unpleasantly for a few notes, and then melted, flowed, and created something- new. Obi-wan let a smile roam across his face, genuine happiness of a rare and uncomplicated kind filling up his chest. He sang along, the chorus-line repeating, and took the melody, letting Maul’s harmony wind around him as he spun into his lean, striped arms. Completely unselfconscious, he slipped one arm around Maul’s shoulders, careful of his neck.

Maul smiled a little. He was always at his most relaxed when he was singing. The notes wavered gently, and he put his free hand to his throat. Obi-wan realized that Maul must have been pleased enough that he was trying to purr while he sang; which was just about the most complimentary thing Obi-wan had ever experienced, that just having him in his arms was enough to make Maul so happy. It was like holding a hurricane, keeping an earthquake cupped in his hands. Maul moved his hand from his own throat, to the dip of Obi-wan’s waist. He was very warm.

Obi-wan closed his eyes, the way he did when he meditated, but instead of focusing on the grandness of the Force, the currents pushing and pulling every living thing in the galaxy, he pulled his attention down and in, paying every bit of his attention to the eddies of the Force around Maul’s presence. The fire in his signature, warm and bright, caught but not tamed. The energy they gave off together, the meeting of cool moonlight and the ring of light around a campfire. A beautiful stillness settled over him, and he could have disappeared into the Force entirely if he hadn’t felt Maul’s thumb rubbing small circles into the bottom of his ribs.

His eyes fluttered open, still heavy with the relaxation in everything from the sunlight to the music to their gentle, swaying dance. Their noses were almost close enough to touch- from this distance he could easily tell that Maul was just barely shorter than him if one did not count horns as extra height. Their mingling breath was warm, and the sunlight slanted over them, and Maul was still humming. Tiny currents in the Force swirled around them, pushing gently for a meeting of Dark and Light, a joining of opposites.

Almost before he knew what was happening, Obi-wan allowed himself to be pushed closer, and ever closer- until their mouths were meeting and _what was he doing_.

He almost managed to make himself pull away when Maul’s hand slid flat onto the small of his back, a bright spot of warmth on his skin, and his Force presence flared; something had fanned the fire. Maul dropped his outstretched hand, and held him by the chin, the tips of his fingers brushing against his long hair.

With his hand free, Obi-wan could’ve done any number of significantly saner things than what he actually did, which was pulling Maul closer with a hand smoothed over his bare ribs. He could feel one of his hearts beating against his palm.

The thing that convinced him not to pull away- together with how good it felt, how much he’d needed to touch someone after so long without- was the Force singing around them, bursts of silvery-grey flowing into being as their light and darkness mingled and danced.


End file.
